The days went on; pleasantly, for the most part. She wrote a long, carefully phrased letter to Rose Tilbury, describing her ‘silly little accident’ and saying that she was having a holiday in Hove. She had actually begun this letter while she was in hospital, but had hesitated from day to day to post it, half hoping that every post would bring her a letter from which she could judge what terms the friendship now stood upon. None had come. Then, after ‘Miss Ellison’s words about the possibility of her Walwyk life having been utterly detached from the rest of her past, she had wondered whether, since leaving Africa, she had ever written to Rose at all. So she must not now write as she felt – which was as though she had only just taken leave of her friend; this might be, for Rose, the first letter after a long, unexplained silence. So she wrote carefully, wondering whether to mention the lapse of memory, and then deciding not to in case Rose should be worried. She read a good deal and, as she grew stronger, undertook little jobs on the garden. Mrs Mott-Tyler looked after the flowers herself and did not welcome help with them, but the kitchen garden, cared for by an old man who came two days a week, offered plenty of opportunity for casual labour, and Miss Mayfield definitely enjoyed gathering vegetables for the house.

As she grew stronger, and the hope of recovering her memory receded, she began to worry less about its loss than about her future. One day she said to Mrs Mott-Tyler:

‘I can’t stay here for ever.’

‘You can as far as I’m concerned. Why not?’

‘It wouldn’t be right. I’m able-bodied. I’m not even forgetful in the ordinary sense. I taught school in Entuba, and in Walwyk, and I still know how. I think I should get in touch with the education authorities.’

‘Which ones?’

‘Walwyk is in Essex, isn’t it? The Essex County Authority.’

‘I don’t suppose they ever heard of you. My God, don’t look like that! I keep forgetting that you don’t know. You weren’t working for them; you were in Hal Thorby’s private school, his pet, his hobby.’

‘Oh, I see. That explains . . . I had wondered why nothing had been said or done about my salary. I had my accident in June, so that month’s cheque should have come to me. And July’s, too, almost certainly, since I should be on sick leave: Now I see; Canon Thorby has been using that money to meet my expenses. That makes me feel better. If I can go back to work at the beginning of next term, I shan’t have been such a burden after all.’